Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard got to them way before me in February while Google's CFO was in Canberra. Then Ms Gillard said wearing them was "a remarkable experience" and I tend to agree.

I only had an hour and a half with them and found them comfortable and lightweight. When it came time to finish the road test, I didn't want to take them off.

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A handler stares at an Owl using Google Glass.

At the moment, Glass is only available to a select number of developers who paid $US1500 for them at a Google conference and 8000 "Explorers" who entered a competition where they had to pay the same amount if they won.

Essentially Glass is an extension of your smartphone or desktop computer. It shows you information through an optical head-mounted display that appears as though its screen is about 2 metres in front of you.

The screen — which sits just above your your right eye's field of vision and is the equivalent of a 25-inch HD TV — allows you to navigate, search or find what you need wherever you are using voice and a touchpad on the side. Glass weighs about 50 grams and Wi-Fi is included for internet connectivity, along with Bluetooth to tether it to an Android phone for data on the go or to take telephone calls and texts. A micro USB is also included for charging.

Google says the idea behind Glass is to get technology out of the way so that you can go about your life without having to constantly check your smartphone or tablet. Instead, I think it'll do the opposite for someone like me and mean I'll be constantly plugged-in to all of the Google services I use and will be constantly checking every alert sound that bugs me. For many, they probably won't want to be so connected.

A handler at Taronga Zoo shows off Google Glass.

Tell Glass "Show me directions to the Sydney Opera House" or "Show me directions to Flinders Street Station" and it'll bring up a Google map with walking, cycling or driving directions on screen and in audio.

What's really cool about this is that as you turn your head, the orientation of the Google map changes on the display in real-time, just like the orientation of a map changes on most modern smartphones when you make a turn.

Ask Glass "Who is the Prime Minister of Australia?" and it'll tell you it's Kevin Rudd. Ask next "How old is he?" and it'll understand the question based on the previous one and spit out his date of birth based on Google's Knowledge Graph, which uses sources like Wikipedia, the CIA World Factbook and Freebase to deliver information to users quickly without having to trawl through a dozen search results for answers.

The ability to hold a Hangout, which is essentially like a Skype video call but with up to 10 people, is also a nifty feature. If you're on top of the Sydney Tower for example, you could use this to show a friend the view.

Probably the strangest thing about Glass is the way it delivers sound. It employs what's called bone conduction technology for the relay of audio to the user through a transducer that sits beside the user's ear. This is used presumably so that a user doesn't have to plug earphones in everytime they put on the glasses. Listening to audio through the bone conduction technology is a strange feeling at first because it causes vibrations and it sounds like it's inside my head. But after some time you tend to forget about the feeling and it becomes a little less weird.

As for voice recognition, most of the time it works really well and as you talk you can see the words you're speaking appear on the screen. However, if Glass interprets the words incorrectly you'll find that you will need to start over again, which can become frustrating. The good news is that if any company in the world has the resources to make the voice recognition experience better it's Google. (As more people use it, it should get better over time.)

Perhaps the biggest obstacle Glass will have to overcome is its privacy implications. Some bars and casinos in the US have already begun banning its use.

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Whether people will want to be seen in public with them on is another thing altogether.